08/04/2021 update: This whole story has been rewritten, so please be aware that most reviews up to chapter 14 may not reflect what is in the current chapters.

Warnings/triggers: mentions of self-deprecation and slight gore.

Disclaimer: I do not own How to Train Your Dragon, its sequels, the Dragons series, their settings. and the characters in it. I only own the original characters, settings, and plot in this story.

I. Sprout

Awakening

The village buzzed into life as the first ray of sunlight hit Berk, signalling the start of a new day.

The chilly air blew across the village, yet not one Viking shivered at the coldness it brought. Their grim faces, however, betrayed their thoughts. It was midway through winter, where dragon raids were at its most severe, and though they had worked extremely hard the last few months to fill up their storage on food, their supplies were still barely enough for everyone to last through the cold, unrelenting winter. But this only pushed them to work harder. After all, Vikings were not only strong and tough, but they also had stubbornness issues.

The villagers filed into the Great Hall, eager to start their day with a nice warm meal. Many of them looked down at their half-filled bowls with a disgruntled scowl. With all the dragon raids and the ruthless weather for any crops and animals to grow, they had been on rationing for at least a month now. Working on hungry stomachs were something that Vikings certainly did not like. The household on top of the mountain overlooking the village seemed to have no problems though. Perhaps it was because that was where the Chief lived, or his two children just did not have enormous appetites like normal Vikings did.

While winter made no difference on the amount of food the two teens, Hiccup and Aleda, ate, its impact was not lost on them. Other than the fact that the two of them just did not have the same brawny figure as most Vikings did to bear with the cold, as apprentices to essential professions of the village, they both had to start work earlier than usual. For instance, the increase in dragon raids had led to a proportional rising demand in weapons, thus Hiccup, as the only apprentice Gobber took in, also had to start work early (and end work late, too). Which meant waking up early. And Hiccup Haddock the Third was not known to be a morning person.

Aleda shook her twin brother vigorously for about five minutes straight, astonished by his ability to respond by whining something illegible and going right back to sleep. Recognising that pure shaking wasn't going to make any progress in even opening her lazy brother's eyes, she proceeded to snatch the blankets off his bed just as a gust of wind entered the room. She watched in triumph when she succeeded in startling Hiccup, who sat up abruptly and shivered.

He grumbled and turned to glare at her, "What was that for?"

"To tell you that you're expected at the forge in five minutes." Aleda snickered at his alarmed reaction as he jumped off the bed and ran down the stairs with barefoot.

"Hey! Don't forget your boots!" She shouted with concern, helping to pick up said forgotten boots before following him down. At the sight of her beloved brother stuffing his face with bread, she laughed and sat down next to him, "Take it easy, we don't want you choking to death at the mere age of fourteen now, do we?"

"It's alright, because you'll save me before I do, right?" Hiccup took a gulp of yak milk and gave his sister a huge grin, "You know, since you're Gothi's only apprentice and second-best healer on Berk?"

"That's because there are only two healers on Berk." Aleda laughed and reached for her favourite honey berry jam, "Never will understand why that woman won't take in more apprentices when there are so many injured people to treat."

"Who else would she take in? The twins? Snotlout?"

"What about Astrid?" Aleda eyed Hiccup slyly, extremely satisfied when Hiccup reacted exactly the way she predicted: blushing just at the sound of Astrid's name. He stammered something about how Astrid was more of a warrior type of person, and how her axe probably needed sharpening soon. Aleda mused over how those statements were not related to each other at all, and decided to stop teasing him before he falls off his chair from embarrassment, "So you're going to be in the forge all day?"

"Probably. Might go out to test a few new projects I've been working on if I have time." Hiccup stopped flailing his arms about, ears still red as tomatoes, "You?"

"Also most likely staying in the hut for the day," Aleda scrutinised the piece of bread she was holding and decided that it could use more jam, "We're running out of herbs soon though, so I might have to go out to get more someday."

"I'll see you tonight then?" Having finished his breakfast, Hiccup stood up to put on his fur vest. Aleda waved as she watched him close the door behind him. She sighed and pulled down the mask from under her hood, finally taking a bite out of the piece of bread that was fully drenched in jam. Her other hand traced idly over the hard smooth scales on her face. They were cold to the touch, almost like stroking a nicely polished stone, remarkably contrasting with the soft skin that surrounded them. She sketched over the almost unnoticeable rifts on the scales, wondering to herself if they will ever disappear. What if they didn't? Would she have to wear this blasted cloak and mask for her entire life?

Despite her father, Stoick the Vast, Chief of the Hooligan Tribe, had prohibited anyone from discussing or commenting on her appearance, she was painfully aware of the looks she received on a daily basis. It didn't matter how decent and cheap her supply of meat from hunting was, or how many villagers after dragon raids she tended to. Behind those doors where they thought they were out of earshot, she would always be known as Aleda the Coward, or Aleda the Cursed. And she understood why they called her this; the names were very fitting. Cursed, for her resemblance and connection to dragons; Coward, for being scared to admit this in public. No wonder everyone thought of her as a shame to the Haddock family.

Just hold on for a little longer, she would think to herself, if Hiccup hadn't given up on trying yet, why should she? Perhaps one day she'd come up with the most useful and effective medicine or ointment, or bring back a large bear from one of her hunting trips, to impress the villagers and eventually earn their acceptance as one of their own. There was once a time when she had the same aspiration as her brother: to hunt down a dragon and show everyone that even though they looked, acted, and thought differently, that they were worthy to be called a Berkian, a Hooligan, a Viking. That they were deserving of their place as the Chief's children, and of their father's love. But that ship sailed long ago, in that one dragon raid where she discovered her ability to turn into a dragon. Dragons – or fire-breathing reptiles, and the most hated type of creature on Berk.

She only hoped that she was not hated by her people, which to her, was an extremely foreign concept, because if she couldn't stop hating herself for what she was, how could she expect anyone else to do any differently? Indeed, her father, who she refused to believe didn't love her because she wouldn't know what to do otherwise, had never had a proper conversation with her, or even looked her in the eyes. She told herself that it was because he was a busy man and was often exhausted when he finally came home after a full day of dealing with chiefly duties; but somewhere inside, there was a nagging thought that maybe, just maybe, her own father was avoiding her. Ever since she could remember, her father had hated dragons with a burning passion, and conceivably, it could be his instinct to stay away from her. And she could see why he should, because she was, unknowingly to him, part of his most despised enemy.

Even her brother, who had stood beside her despite the shame she had brought upon their family, who gave her reassuring and gentle smiles every time she felt down, may look at her with horror and disgust if he knew about the scales on her body, or her ability to turn into large fiery beasts that haunted their home for three hundred years. She was willing to share everything and anything with Hiccup, from her favourite honey berry jam to deep lurking thoughts she tended to have in the middle of the night, but this was something that she did not dare to tell him, for fear that he would leave her. That she would lose him.

Her grip tightened at the thought of losing her brother, body washed over in despair. She gave a small yelp when she felt a sticky substance on her hand, and stared blankly at the red fragrant goo of jam. Drawing in a shaky breath, she shook her head, ate the last remaining bit of the bread, and got ready to leave the house for work.

~/~

"Comfrey leaf, Oregon grape root, calendula..." Aleda hummed as she picked up the slightly wilted plants that she had left to dry a day ago. She breathed in the air, thoroughly enjoying the faint aroma of the mixture of flowers and herbs that was an indicative smell of the healer's hut. The sound of bubbling from the boiling water from across the room and the rhythm of her knife slicing through the herbs was soothing to her ears, relaxing to her mind, and calming to her soul. Unlike the frigid temperature outside, the inside of the hut was just warm enough to keep her comfortable, but not too hot that it would affect the stored herbs she dried and processed since summer. [1]

She was about to start mashing the mixture of chopped herbs together when she heard the village elder, or her mentor, Gothi's, footsteps. The old woman took a whiff of the air, walked over to peek at Aleda's work, and gave a puzzled croon. "This isn't for the hut," Aleda explained patiently, visibly content with her chore, "It's for Hiccup. He's been getting burns and cuts from the forge lately." She turned to retrieve the jug of oil from a shelf that was conveniently situated next to her work and pulled out the plug at the top of the jug, "Not that it won't be helpful for the villagers, but I'm assuming that most of them aren't concerned with mere 'scratches and bruises'."

She heard Gothi cackle at her statement and eyes-rolling and assumed that Gothi was proud that she had managed to pick up her mentor's attitude of irritation towards uncooperative and dismissive Vikings. Aleda then put down the mixture of herbs and oil when she heard sounds of rustling and clanking of bones against Gothi's staff. On the ground, Gothi had written: You sure dote on that brother of yours a lot.

Aleda smiled, voice almost dripping with pride, "Of course, he's my brother. I'd do anything for him." She was so very proud of her brother – his intelligence, imagination, and ingenuity were something she admired and treasured greatly, and she was dying to find out what inventions he would come up with next.

Aleda returned to her work, pouring the mixture on a pot and placing the pot above the boiling water. She watched the pot for a while, and asked "Gothi, what do you think about Ice Thyme? For the smell, and its soothing effects?"

Gothi pondered for a few moments before writing: It may work, but make sure to use the fully dried ones. Upon approval, Aleda nodded in satisfaction, but Gothi continued: You're making him a personalised ointment?

"Don't tell him this, but," Aleda lowered her voice, as if someone other than the two of them were also in the room and could overhear her, "It's supposed to be his birthday gift. If this works, I'll have around another week to make the finalised batch. My other gift should also hopefully be ready around then."

You mean that grass potion you've been working on for the last few months?

"It's not a grass potion!" Aleda huffed with indignation, "It's an extract. I finally figured out a way to extract the smell into liquid." She gestured to the running apparatus at the other end of her workstation, "The mixture containing the plant is boiled and forms vapours, which is then separately collected and cooled back down into – and you're not listening." Aleda sighed as Gothi ignored her excited speech that was otherwise informative, but had already been repeated so many times that Gothi could recite her words if given the chance. [2]

At the mention of the extract she had been working on, Aleda carefully removed the accumulating liquid from her small appliance and gave it a slight sniff. She previously confirmed that this method was able to extract the smell out of fragrant plants, but she was still unsure if the liquid still retained the same function as the weed itself. She had been working on extracting a type of grass that was oddly tranquilising to her, which she found while hunting on a large plain on Berk a few years ago. She later discovered that it did not affect other humans, but surprisingly had the same effect on dragons. Noticing that her brother was recently sneaking out to test his contraptions on dragons more frequently than she expected, she wondered if coating something he carried around with this grass would earn him enough time to run from an angry dragon. Or dragons, if he was unlucky enough.

Aleda closed her eyes and recalled the time when they were so close to getting killed by dragons. It was during a dragon raid years ago, after they sneaked out together to with the intention to find and hunt down a dragon to prove their worth. They ran towards wherever there was fire, since the fire must had come from a source: dragons. She remembered the scorching hot air despite how it should be freezing cold in the middle of winter; how her throat burned as she inhaled in smoke from charred wood, and how the fires were intense enough to paint the dark night sky into a glowing red.

They did succeed in finding a dragon around those fires. Or rather, the dragon found them. She could not quite remember what the dragon looked like, only that it was extremely enormous as it towered over them with ease and had incredibly sharp teeth that looked like it could easily snap them in two. Hiccup had immediately stood in front of her to block her view of the raging reptile, but it did not stop its deafening roar from blasting her eardrums until they rang. Somewhere at the back of Aleda's mind, she realised that they were no match at all, and was most likely going to die right there and then. She suddenly could not feel her limbs; it was as if someone had nailed her feet to the ground. Her mind screamed at her to run, to move, to stop standing there and to do something. Anything!

But even standing was already a hard feat for her. If not for her completely frozen limbs, she was sure that her legs would have given out by now. One second she was looking at her brother's thin frail back, and the next second, he was gone. A loud slam resounded from the side like something had crashed into the ground. The creature turned its head and opened its mouth. Aleda followed its sight, and found, in horror, Hiccup lying on the ground, unconscious.

No.

No.

No!

Something erupted within her. Like an explosion, waves of burning hot flames blazed through her body, threatening to engulf everything on its path. Panic. Terror. A fierce desire to protect.

The beast had awakened.

She lunged forward without hesitation, violently thrusting the dragon to the ground. A roar just as raw and intense, if not more than the one she heard just a minute ago, tore through her throat and past her mouth. Mind void of anything other than the dragon in front of her, her instincts took control of her body. Her blood boiled, like lava in an active volcano, urging her to ram, to dig, to bite at the creature. Her senses – vision, hearing, touch – had never been this sensitive, nor intense.

Her teeth, sharper than she remembered, sunk into its scales. The foul taste of iron seeped into her mouth, her nose, and across her appendages. An earsplitting scream then pierced through her ears, and before she could react, she was knocked backwards into a solid hard tree. The trunk snapped. She paid no heed to the rustling and grating sounds from the falling tree, feeling nothing but adrenaline pumping through her veins, and the subsequent breeze of air whistling past her body as she launched forward again to send the dragon tumbling. Limbs raised to shield her brother from the creature, she glared at it until it burned holes on its scales.

"Stay away from him," She snarled, "Or I will tear you apart."

The dragon trembled and whimpered in fear, and with one last scowl from her, it took off into the skies.

Pulse still rushed from the combat, she turned around to make sure Hiccup was alright. She reached out to check for his injuries, stopping dead at her tracks at the sight of her hand.

This wasn't her hand.

This was a claw.

She blinked multiple times to confirm that she was not hallucinating. She fell back in horror when she realised, she was in fact, not hallucinating.

She had turned into a dragon.

~/~

"What brings you to the forge, lassie?"

Aleda lifted her head to meet Gobber's joyful grin. Despite having lost an arm and a leg, the man seemed completely unfazed by the inconvenience, sometimes even joking about it himself. According to Hiccup, it was also an excellent excuse to have his apprentice run most, if not all, of the errands at the forge. His cheerful spirit brought a smile upon Aleda's lips, and she found her mood lifting ever so slightly.

Gobber was one of the first people to have found her and Hiccup after the incident where they nearly got themselves killed. She had just unknowingly transformed back to her human form when they arrived; She remembered clutching her shoulder and struggling to breath after the adrenaline wore off, but nothing afterwards because she was in such agonising pain. Though she was not the healer's apprentice yet at that point of time, she was fairly certain that she had broken a bone or two.

"Is Hiccup around?" Aleda asked.

"Oh, you're here for Hiccup!" The blacksmith cheerfully chirped, "He's just at the back, in the small room where he keeps all his wild crazy blueprints. Not sure what he's doing, but he's been in there for the past few hours."

"Thanks," Aleda took a few steps, but instead of walking past Gobber, she paused and lowered her voice to a hush, "Gobber, how much will it cost if I want to buy a custom-made dagger?"

"A dagger?" Gobber, completely unaware of Aleda's lowered voice, hollered, "Why don't you just ask Hiccup to make you one? He's much better at making these small instruments than me."

"Shhh!" Aleda resisted the urge to swat at Gobber and instead put a finger in front of her lips – or rather, mask, "It's a surprise birthday gift for Hiccup. I'm thinking of infusing some kind of herb to the handle of the dagger, if that's possible."

"Oh, fancy," Gobber turned around to retrieve something, "I won't charge you anything, since it's for Hiccup's birthday." He then threw a roll of fabric at her, which she, unsurprisingly, failed to catch.

As she ran to pick up the roll of fabric, she asked, "What's this?"

"What you're putting your fancy herbs in. Come back in a few days with it and I'll wrap it around the hilt for you."

Aleda beamed at Gobber's words, thanked him, and knocked on the door of the small room at the back of the forge. When she heard no reply from inside, she quietly opened the door. Upon entry, she found Hiccup snoring lightly on a table with a charcoal pencil still in his left hand. There were drawings sprawled all around him, some scrunched up into balls and some pinned on the wall. She peered at a half finished drawing in front of him, but was unable to decipher what was on it due to its complexity. Deciding that it was rude to intrude on his privacy like this, she stopped her eyes from roaming about and directed them to her twin brother instead.

Hiccup, who was already considered small and scrawny by Viking standards, looked even more fragile and vulnerable when asleep. Mumbling something under his breath, he shifted in his sleep, clearly uncomfortable in the position he was in at the moment. Aleda noted the dark-tinted sockets under his eyes, and she found herself both exasperated and distressed to see him working himself too much again, not just due to the increased amount of work in the forge lately, but also because he had a terrible habit of forgetting to eat and sleep when one of his brilliant ideas crop up. She shook her head, sighed, and crouched down to reach him.

"Come on, let's get you home." She grunted as she put his arm around her shoulder and half carried him home, waving to Gobber as they left the forge. She stumbled a few times, simultaneously happy and miffed about his increased weight. On one hand, he was finally gaining some fat (or muscle) on his unhealthily lean frame; On the other hand, she hadn't gained any muscles lately to carry his extra weight. Left with no free hands, she shifted her weight to her left leg and kicked the door open when they arrived home. She was confident that the door would not break under her kick (which was pathetic anyways), because they had just reinforced it last month when their father had accidentally broken it (from annoyance because the Thorston twins had set fire to Sven's sheep to "warm them up" and Sven wouldn't shut up about it), again. She tried to drag Hiccup up the stairs, but soon gave up and decided to sit him down on a chair instead.

As soon as Aleda set Hiccup down, her stomach gave a grumbling sound. She glanced at her brother who seemed too tired to make another trip to the Great Hall, thus resigning to make a meal at home. She made a furrowed face as she threw whatever she could find in the kitchen into a boiling pot of water. Her cooking was never great, something she probably inherited from her mother, and so the resulting stew would be rather... bland. Aleda opened a cabinet above her head that was conveniently within reach even though she was shorter than most Vikings in the village. The cabinet was her father's work; he had gone through the effort of learning advanced carpentry just to make shorter cabinets when he once came across Aleda tiptoeing on a chair in the kitchen. At retrieving some dried chamomile flowers from the cabinet, Aleda quickly noticed the stocked-up stack of honey berry jam that she was sure had ran out this morning.

She grazed her hand against the jars of jam, a warm feeling rising up from within her chest. A smile formed on her lips as she turned around to retrieve another cup, adding hot water and dried chamomile into them to make a tea that would hopefully help her father sleep peacefully and relieve at least some of his stress from the day. An ominous thought creeped into her mind, telling her that she was only loved for now because her family had not found out about her secret yet. If they did, would they still love her the way they did now? Or would they shun her, despise her, or worse, disown her?

Aleda took a deep breath to stop her train of thoughts from diving into a hole that she knew was unending and would leave her in a crying mess. She fingered a pendant that lied above her chest, calming herself down as she watched the red stone that once belonged to her mother shine in the firelight. At this moment, she wished for nothing but her mother, who must had known about her scales but did not give up on her nevertheless, to be here and tell her that she was loved no matter what, that it must be possible for the rest of her family to love her even if she resembled dragons. [3]

She glanced at the dark winter sky from the window, briefly entertaining the idea of what her life would be like if her mother was still alive. Perhaps her mother was still out there, just like how most villagers had tried to break the news to young Hiccup and her - that their mother just went to a place far far away. Aleda chuckled at her unrealistic fantasy, picked up the two hot cups, and walked out of the kitchen.

Author's Note

[1] Comfrey leaf, Oregon grape root, and calendula are all real herbs that when processed, produces an ointment for burns and scrapes. Chamomile mentioned at the end of the chapter is also a real herb/flower which you can steep in tea to improve your sleep quality. Ice Thyme is a fictional flower I made up and is supposed to resemble the smell of mint. Dragon nip is also mentioned in passing, but its name is not revealed because canonically at this point of time, this type of grass/weed isn't discovered nor named by anyone yet. This story will continue to use a mix of plants that either exists in reality, in the series, or is completely fictional. I may or may not point them out throughout the story, so if you're interested, please do tell me (or leave a review) so I know whether to continue including these in my author's notes. Please feel free to skip these if you're not!

[2] Aleda just invented hydrodistillation (which I'm not sure existed in the Vikings ages, but the series have included technologies, very often invented by Hiccup and the Thorston twins, that are way beyond the Viking age). The Haddock family is consisted of extremely bright-minded Vikings, and both Aleda and Hiccup have inherited this. Hiccup's talents are in invention, while Aleda is dedicated to discovering herbal and medicinal recipes, and any methods that can facilitate in this.

[3] If I ever got to writing a sequel for this story (which will probably take a very, very, long time, and by that time I'm fairly certain nobody will be reading this anymore), I will explain the significance of this pendant (a hint would be it is related to the HTTYD book series by Cressida Cowell). For now, please just forget about it as it has virtually no significance to this story.

The following notes are all unnecessary blabbering that you can all just skip if you want!

To anyone who have read this before, Aleda is now no longer adept at any types of combat other than hunting with a bow and arrow, at least not at this time of the story. She is also not proficient nor experienced in the ability to turn into a dragon, because it would make no sense for a child that grew up in a war against dragons to fathom accepting her identity as a dragon until something (or someone) visibly sways this thought. She was fighting with pure instincts here, literally just ramming and biting at whatever she could get her hands and mouth on.

Aleda's personality and mentality is also slightly different. She's less confident, more insecure, and more desperate to be accepted as a Viking here. She is unsure and conflicted about whether Stoick truly loves her, and if she deserves such love because she's been hiding her "dragon side" from him. She's afraid of exposing her identity, not just because she doesn't want to be killed, but also because she's convinced that her father and brother will leave and hate her if they ever find out. She doesn't resent the villagers at all for calling her names – she even agrees with them, and all of this develops into a very unhealthy feeling of self-hatred. At this moment in the story, the only thing that keeps her going is the knowledge that Hiccup is still fighting, and that at least her mother didn't give her up.

The direction that the plot is also going to take a change. There will be no (or at least no significant) interactions between Aleda and the rest of the teens on Berk until slightly later in the story. I've decided to split the plot into four sections (or acts), and the interaction (fight) that was supposed to occur at chapter 3 previously will now be moved to the end of Act I. We will still be celebrating Aleda and Hiccup's birthday, though their birthday gifts are different from the previous versions I have written. The pace right now is still very slow, but expect it to pick up straight away after the birthday chapter!